


Will You Tell Me a Story?

by Unseemingowl



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Because what happened to Doctor Renfrew?, Broken people broken things, Gen, H.C Andersen, Mental Illness, this is my take
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-07 02:32:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14661498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unseemingowl/pseuds/Unseemingowl
Summary: Just before the thunderstorm breaks, River Song goes to see a very old friend.





	Will You Tell Me a Story?

**Author's Note:**

> Because after mentioning him in my last fanfic, I wanted to know what happened to Doctor Renfrew and I wanted River to interact with a regular person. 
> 
> This is my take on the two.

The heat was stifling as she materialised with a crackle under a cluster of magnolia trees. Even at this time at night with the stars winking at her from between the gaps in the pink flowers overhead. But the bubble of dark storm clouds on the horizon was promising a break from the heat at some point. 

”Why did I choose Florida again?” River muttered to herself as she toed off her shoes and shrugged out of her jacket.

All of space and time and Florida’s weather still defied expectation.

Her fingers shot to her hair, already double in size due to the electricity of the vortex, but feeling it rise even further at the sudden increase in humidity.

Wrestling for a vague sense of control, River tied it back with a silk scarf from her bag before she headed up through the garden.

At this time of night, none of the residents were out, and the white washed buildings looked almost ghostly in the moonlit garden. There was only light in a few of the windows, the biggest being the nurses break room. She recognised the lone figure in there, tired and weary looking, watching the play of images running across the TV screen on the wall.

River snuck over and knocked on the windowpane, making the woman jump in her seat.

“Melanie, what are you doing in our rose bushes?”

“Hi, Leticia. You got a cigarette?” she asked, easily slipping into the American drawl of her cover and her childhood alike.

Leticia looked flustered as she dug through the pocket in her scrubs, but was smiling by the time she reached out the packet towards River, the colours from the television set streaking reds and blues across her dark skin.

“So how is he?” River quizzed as she lit her cigarette, and eyed Leticia’s long, black braids enviously as she could feel her own hair struggling against the bind of her scarf.

It was in heat like this that she really missed the days when she’d worn her hair like that, but it wasn’t really a hairstyle that she could carry off in this body.

“I’m afraid he’s deteriorating. He’s getting very frail and is off in his own world most of the time, but he enjoys painting the magnolias and the thunderstorms when he’s lucid,” the nurse said as she pushed the window open further, leaning out to light her own cigarette.

Leticia’s frankness was one of the reasons River preferred to confer with her. The other carers always tried to pretty it up, which added the bother of breaking into the nursing home's files. 

“And how's your painting coming along?"

“Pretty good, when the kids aren't too distracting. Angie’s discovered feminism and David’s discovered that girls are good for something other than teasing, so it’s eventful at the moment.”

“Sounds like a handful, yeah,” River winced in sympathy.

“And what about your impossible man?” Leticia had lifted one eyebrow conspiratorially as she leaned in closer.

“Still gorgeous, still impossible. Tries to tell me what to do, but he’s learning.”

“He worth it though?”

“Oh, absolutely. That’s the annoying part.”

Leticia chuckled, the laughter of a woman who knew the struggle well, but offered no other reply, and so for a while they simply listened to the distant thunder rolling in from the sea and the canned laughter from the Golden Girls on TV as they smoked. Having just come from a coup attempt on a planet on the outskirts of the Andromeda galaxy, it seemed almost alarmingly domestic.

“There’s a fresh pot brewing if you want a cup before heading in,” Leticia supplied as River stubbed out her cigarette

“Did you manage to convince your boss to invest in some decent beans?”

“Yup, although I’m guessing the strongly worded letter from one of our clients has something to do with it.”

Leticia’s words were pointed, as was the kink in her eyebrows as she looked at River, who ignored the subtext completely.

Magnolia Shades was a first class facility, mostly catering to the old, rich Floridians who had outgrown their retirement condos, but the manager was a tight fisted bastard when it came to his employees. Squeezing him over his infidelities online to the advantage of his employees was a small pleasure in River’s life, but one that gave her great joy whenever she visited.

Plus it made him more likely to protect any secrets her charge might accidentally sprout.

“You got Javanese?”

“You bet.” Leticia opened the window fully, allowing River to climb through.

The residents’ hall was completely quiet when she parted with Leticia at the coffee machine, the nurse heading out on her rounds while River padded down the corridor in search of the actual goal of her visit.

“Who’s there,” the voice was as wobbly and scratchy when River pushed open the door.

“It’s Melody, Douglas,” River explained as she switched on one of the smaller table lamps, bathing the room in a soft, warm glow.

“Do I know a Melody?”

The figure in the bed was bonier than ever, tiny under the weight of the blanket, the skin hanging loose over the hollows of his cheekbones, his hair barely more than a few grey wisps.

“It’ll come to you some day,” River assured him before settling down in the chair next to the bed and took off her scarf.

The only splashes of colours in his room were his own paintings, primarily of the sea front or the magnolia trees, although there was one painting in the corner of a little girl with her blonde hair in plaits.

Most of the other residents had their rooms positively cluttered with things from their home, but Douglas Renfrew was a ghost. The wardens of River's past had scrubbed him from existence so thoroughly that not even she had been able to locate the details of his life. Whether he had a wife, a family – children of his own - before the Silence had found him. So the only items were what knick knacks she had left in his rooms over the years.

There was no answer from him, but his eyes were wary, as he looked her over, blinking once, slowly, to focus on her face.

“You’re the storyteller. Will you tell me a story tonight?”

He didn’t really need to ask. River already had the book of fairy tales halfway out of her bag. It was the question he always asked her. The spine crackled as she opened it, worn and old, full of the doodles and scribbles of her childhood self.

The first couple of times she had read to him, it had been unnerving, him quiet and unresponsive in the bed safe for the dark eyes constantly watching her as she read one fairytale after the other.

Arabian Nights had been followed by Grimm’s Collected Works, Doctor Seuss and the Greek Myths. Like Arabian Nights the latter had been edited to be suited for children. And now at last they were at H.C Andersen’s stories – River’s favourite when she had been a little girl.

He had never been able to play with her, when she was little. Most days he had been too confused to focus on anything more than making sure she was well fed and cleaning her up when she returned after a day of roaming the many rooms and floors of Greystark Orphanage.

But he’d always had stories for her when she was tucked into bed and the thunder rumbled outside like it did now, the smell of magnolias drifting in through the cracked window. His stories had been the only counterweight to the horrors of the Doctor that Madame Kovarian had whispered in little Melody’s ear when she had been learning to assemble and disassemble a gun and when they'd pulled her out of the water tank where they submerged her to build up her stamina. 

_”Kay! Dear little Kay! at last I’ve found you! But he sat there quite still, stiff and cold; – then little Gerda cried hot tears. They fell on his chest, they managed to enter his heart, they thawed out the lump of ice and consumed the tiny fragment of mirror inside…”_

She jumped and stopped reading aloud when she suddenly felt a touch on her hand, Doctor Renfrew’s bony fingers encircling her own.

”The child.”

”Melody,” River clarified, heart suddenly in her throat, beating a million miles per hour. He had recognised as the storyteller many times, but never as Melody.

”But the child didn’t have curly hair,” his gaze travelled over her hair, no doubt frizzier than ever despite the air conditioning.

”I grew up. Got curly.”

”Are we alone?” The frail, old voice was suddenly terrified, his grip like a vice around her hand despite his weakness and his age.

Gently, River wrested her fingers loose and got up to look in the mirror in the corner, watching as a sudden flash of lightning from the outside threw her face into sharp relief.

Her face was bare, no marks on her arms.

”Yes, Douglas. It’s just us.”

”Are you safe?” Said like that, it sounded like the most important question in the universe.

”Yes, it won't come for me again. I've made sure of that.”

He relaxed again, fingers unclawing from the bedding and River blinked away the tears from her face.

”You have children?”

”No, but I have a husband and many travels. I’m an archeologist.”

She pulled out an old talisman from her bag. A proper dream catcher from the outer peleponesian rings, a low level perception filter to disguise it to look like it was from this planet at least, make it more appropriate to hang from the night light. ”It’s to ward off evil spirits.”

He didn’t seem terribly interested in the bauble, eyes once again on her, gaze tracing the whorls of her hair. 

”You haven’t finished the story.”

”You want me to?”

No proper answer, just a nod, but his fingers crept into hers again as she began reading the final part of the fairytale. His breathing evened out slowly as she spoke around the lump in her throat.

_”And they sat there, grown-up, but children still. Children at heart. And it was summer, warm, glorious summer.”_

Outside the thunder had swelled into a storm, the heat breaking as the rain began to patter against the window sill.

And the old hand in hers was still.

**Author's Note:**

> Fairytale outtakes are from H.C Andersens "The Snow Queen"


End file.
